Star Pubs & Bars, the leased pub business of Heineken, is among the biggest investors in equipment right now thanks to a finely-tuned strategy created to help licensees develop their culinary offering.

Food strategy and implementation manager, Luke Davies, is the man behind the plan and he has created a series of practical support tools and programmes, including menu development guides and recruitment toolkits.

Around 75% of Star’s 1,000-strong estate is now serving food, higher than any other leased and tenanted pub company, and with the chain pledging to invest more than £250,000 in food support over the next 12 months, that figure is bound to increase.

Luke, a chef by trade, relishes the opportunity to work with pubs eager to expand their food offering, helping them to design kitchen environments that suit their needs.

“We have six templates that we work from based on volume and style of food, and we have a minimum kit list for each of those kitchens,” he says. “We sit down at the brief stage and work through which segment it is going to be in and what the volume is, which enables us to establish what kit is needed, and we stick to that very rigidly.”